HTC One A9: Android with iPhone-style in Test

With the HTC One A9, there is finally a noble android: So far, saw no HTC smartphone from beautiful!The ULTIMATE TECH NEWS test shows whether it also technically convincing.

ULTIMATE TECH NEWS Head of Christian Just when testing the HTC One A9.

as judgment of ULTIMATE TECH NEWS editorial to look and feel the A9 One is positive: The slim 5-inch Android feels very pleasant, there are no interfering edges.Even the display glass is rounded.In short: This is the most handy so far and probably best HTC smartphone.

A9 look: Android in Apple style

The similarities to theiPhone 6Sare astounding: The A9 feels similar to the iPhone, but is not so slippery because of the slightly roughened back in his hand.It also has a well-rounded aluminum uni body enclosure and the speaker grill on the bottom of the device should Apple users seem familiar.Even the rear plastic strips for the antenna so you already know from Apple since theiphone6.

Sharp Display

While the HTC One A9 has taken a 4.7-inch screen, a 5-inch display and is 3.7 millimeters wide, 7.5 millimeters higher and a touch thicker than the iPhone 6. Nonetheless, it is considerably easier to handle than about HTC’s previous flagshipHTC OneM9.And: It weighs 14 grams less than the M9 and is with 143 grams as hard as the smaller iPhone 6S.For the first time HTC has mounted below the display a Home button, which, as with Apple, a fingerprint sensor includes.This is about to unlock the device, which in the test just as fast as the iPhone worked 6S.The argument about who ab schaut here at whom may be the users care less, especially since HTC had the idea of complete aluminum housing before Apple.More importantly, how it feels and what technology offers.Compared to the iPhone 6S HTC offers the sharper display (440 ppi vs. 325 ppi) and uses Gorilla Glass 4. The resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD).

Memory expansion up to 200 gigabytes

The internal memory is 16 gigabytes (which is the Android-6-System 6.6 GB) is not exactly abundant, but is expandable via microSD XC card – currently a maximum of 200 gigabytes.Such cards cost commercially currently around150euros.The memory includes 2 gigabytes, as with Apple.

Camera: Neat, but not the best of HTC

The rear 13-megapixel camera and 5-megapixel camera at the front provide similar resolutions such as that of the iPhone 6S.But the A9 trumps with some innovations: It is in fact an optical image stabilizer built in the both the HTC One M9 as well as the iPhone 6S missing.Of this fact should benefit in low light video recordings and photos.Disappointing: The pictures showed a disturbing image noise and were very detail arm.Therefore, the photo quality was given the same failing grade as the HTC One M9 (Rating: 4.8).The aperture is f = 2.0 brighter than the HTC One M9 and iPhone 6S (both aperture f = 2.2).In the test, the A9 (Rating: 2.9) was the visual inspection of daylight shots because even slightly better than the M9 (Rating: 3,06).Much better is here, however, the iPhone 6S (Rating: 2.73).With its front camera, the new HTC could outdo his predecessors M9 and the iPhone: You gave good details and only slightly pale colors.The video quality in daylight shots was, however, disturbed by fine Brainchildren, far behind the two rivals.

Installed new camera functions

Good: sapphire glass protects the lens from scratches.Even RAW images (RAW = raw data format in which the camera stores the data after digitization largely without processing) are now possible at the A9 and can even edit the smartphone with its own app.HTC has completely reworked the camera features the A9: So there is a new time-lapse mode, Hyper-lapse called.Hook: When resolving the One A9 lags the One M9 (20 megapixel) far behind.Even the built-in speaker is not as strong as the HTC One M9 or M8.Although the tone of the headphone output should be especially good and powerful when A9 According to HTC, because the sound processor internally consistently runs at 24 bits and 192 kHz.In the test, but that was not detectable.The results were behind those of the HTC One M9.

No turbo under the hood

Compared to One M9 the Snapdragon 617 processor is (overclocking: 4 x 4 x 1.5 GHz and 1.2 GHz) in A9 slightly slower – but is more power efficient and cooler running than the Snapdragon 810. When working and operating tempo the A9 was approximately behind the M9, which is equipped with a Snapdragon-810 processor (which distributed its performance on four cores, each with two gigahertz and further four cores with 1.5 GHz).However, the menus and apps can operate smoothly and quickly.

Battery: Unfortunately, only lean foods

In addition, the CPU uses less power.Just as it was HTC possible to shrink the battery compared to M9 of 2850 at 2150 mAh.Thus it is not enough to connect with the battery life of the HTC One M9 with its at least a good 11 hours of intense mix of uses by far.Not even eight hours retains the A9 through in this discipline.Even with low usage of the device through phone calls, Internet or Navigation, the A9 is just under 10 hours less per battery charge far behind the M9.Charging is “2.0 Qualcomm Quick Charge” succeed up to 75 percent faster than usual, according to HTC thanks turbocharging technology.Why HTC but attaches no corresponding charger here is unclear.Perhaps one waits until the even stronger Quick Charge 3.0-chargers are available, which also supports the A9.

Fast LTE and WLAN ac

The maximum possible mobile Tempo Class and the WLAN coverage, the HTC One A9 plays in the top smartphone League: LTE CAT6 provides downloads of up to 300 Mbps and WLAN ac super-fast connections via the 5 gigahertz frequency are possible – up to a maximum 433 Mbps.

First HTC with Android 6.0

Aside from Google’s Nexus models, the HTC One A9 is the first Android a major manufacturer withAndroid 6.0marshmallow.The biggest advantage: Finally Apps can install on your memory card.The in-house surface HTC Sense is designed usual reticent.Because HTC Sense is now divided into several apps, updates are easier and faster in the future come from the Google Play Store.

Price and Availability

The HTC One A9 to the beginning of November to be available for 579 euros in Germany in stores and at Vodafone, Telekom and O2.First in Carbon Grey and Opal Silver, later in Topaz Gold and Deep Garnet (deep red).